


Want

by AshToSilver



Series: Peace and War On Planet Earth [1]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Asexual Character, Bipolar Disorder, Character Death, Disabled Character, Happy Ending, Multi, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Sex Work, Sexual Assault, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8050678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver
Summary: Bruce Wayne is twelve years old the night they dig a bullet out of him. Jay is sixteen years old the day he accepts he won't ever be okay. The Batman has existed for less then six months when the Joker is born.





	Want

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a universe I've been building for a while now and honestly so much of it is terrrrriiibbbllee I am so mean to these characters. This is sort of a prologue to the main story and it'll be a three parter, with part 2 being from Jay/Joker's prospective and part 3 being the Batman and the Joker meeting.
> 
> Thank you to [Zapiarty](zapiarty.tumblr.com) for beta'ing.
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** heavy themes of rape culture, non-graphic non-consentual sensual and sexual interactions towards an underage and of-age asexual character. Ableist themes all over the place. If you are made sad by asexual erasement, discrimination against disabled characters and corrective rape you may not want to read this. Also character death towards the end.

Later, much later, when people ask him why he became the Batman, Bruce answers plainly. He wanted to help people. He didn’t want others to experience a tragedy like the one he went through.

He does not say _I didn’t want to be me anymore_ because that isn’t what people want to hear.

Bruce has gotten very good at saying what people want him to say.

* * *

Nine days after Bruce is released from the hospital, sixteen screws in three bones and on enough painkillers to make his vision blur, a young board executive bringing papers asks Alfred how long it’ll be before there are more Waynes in the world.

This is what he knows; he is the last Wayne. He has a lot of money to give. They want to ensure that money lives on to keep on giving.

This is what he learns; he is broken and they don’t even bother trying to pretend otherwise.

Bruce is twelve years old and by the time he is thirteen, just shy of three months after the alleyway, the hospital, the missed funeral, the start of his nightmares, he has been reintroduced to most of the rich girls in Gotham and at least five between the ages of eleven and fifteen have suggested or outright asked to date him.

Every single one of them has expressed in whispers or to his face that he won’t do better.

This is what he knows; if you can’t walk, you can’t keep up.

This is what he learns; that makes you worthless.

In the three months between November 12th and February 19th, Bruce is twelve verging on thirteen, struggling to get through physical therapy and he wakes up choking on tears every other day. He spends the hours between ten and eleven PM most nights bracing himself against the sink and washing blood he can’t see anymore off his hands, only to fall asleep with the skin cracked enough to bleed all over the sheets and start the cycle again the next morning.

This is what he understands; he has a duty. He must protect Gotham. He must continue the family mission. But every day is pain. He may never run again. He could never do something like his parents did. He still has a duty. If he cannot do it, he must find a wife and have kids and make it their duty to do instead.

In the three months between his parents’ death and his birthday, Bruce thinks of killing himself four times. On the day he turns thirteen, Alfred hugs him at breakfast and whispers _I am so glad you’re still here with me_ into his hair.

Bruce does not think of it again.

This is what he is told; he is broken, he doesn’t know any better. _Listen to us_ , say the adults around him, _we know what you need to do, we know what you want_. Listening is the only thing he feels capable of doing, in a world acting like it’s spinning out of his control, in a world defined by a leg and hip shattered by a single bullet.

He does not like what he hears, but he listens and he does what they ask. It’s his duty after all.

* * *

Three months after a man in an alley shoots Bruce, his mother and his father, the pain has yet to leave him.

He’d spent two miserable weeks in the hospital, after they’d pulled out the bullet fragments that had splintered off his right hipbone. He’d missed his own parents’ funeral and part of him wonders if he’ll ever get closure as a result. Life has been an endless, miserable circuit of physical therapy and meetings with lawyers and doctors and company executives and he is so tired and it all hurts _so much_.

They’d given him crutches and then taken them away, when his leg could start to hold the weight after a few months. They’d made him bend and stand and push to the point of sobbing pain and then beyond. He’d done it, because he had to, because maybe he could _get better_.

But the pain doesn’t go away. The metal plates keeping him together hold, though he can feel the ache. The single crunch he sometimes uses keeps him upright and he can go short distances without it. But the pain in his stomach and his hip doesn’t leave him and the longer he walks, the more he pushes, the worse it gets.

They won’t listen to him.

_It’s suppose to hurt, kid_.

They won’t listen to him at all.

_You need to stop complaining and do what we ask you to. We know what is best for you. We always know best_.

Five days after his thirteenth birthday, he misses a step going down the stairs and stumbles. There is pain for only a moment, a brief moment of sharp, burning, slicing pain before the world explodes.

It is not _pain_ , after that point. It’s worse than getting shot, it’s worse than recovering after the hospital. It’s agony beyond any he’s known before, even though the painkillers and he screams so hard he swears his voice cracks halfway though.

He comes to in the hospital, a drip delivering that now familiar sensation of heavy painkillers into his veins. The world’s so far away he can barely feel his fingers on the blanket and all he wants to do is cry. He would if he could feel enough to do it.

He blinks, perhaps a moment or a day later and sees Alfred come forward, hands on the bed rial and some miserable expression on his face.

Bruce’s first thought is simple; _maybe I’m dying_.

His second is this; _finally_.

But then Alfred opens his mouth and it isn’t like that all.

_They missed a fragment._

The pain of muscles burning as he relearned, that was what the therapists had said.

_The doctor who performed your initial surgery left a piece of the bullet inside of you. It has migrated and done damage to several muscles and ligaments. It has damaged your organs. You are now bleeding internally. You need surgery immediately._

All that work to recover and he has to do it all over again. He cracks a dry laugh when the nurse puts a needle into his IV and it turns into a sob before he drifts asleep in a hospital hallway.

He thinks he knows this hallway.

His parents used to work here.

He wakes up with six inches less of his large intestine and the knowledge that he won’t be leaving his bed for a month. _It’s that or you may never walk again_.

They say it’ll affect the recovery of his bones a small bit, but he should be fine. He should be alright, in the end.

Bruce wakes up in a hospital bed, in a hospital his parents used to work at. He is missing part of his organs and he will most likely never run again. He almost died for the second time.

He lays there for four and a half weeks, sees a dozen doctors, two dozen nurses, all his physical therapists and a great many new people.

Not a single one apologizes to him for what happened.

* * *

He learns a lot after that.

He learns how to eat even when he can barely stomach food.

He learns how to walk even when it hurts to much to even think about it.

He learns how to get back to sleep when the nightmares won’t leave him alone.

He learns how to let girls touch him and ruffle his hair and make comments about his body without saying a word.

He learns how to hear those girls’ parents say his money and his condition makes a good match.

He learns how to listen to people tell him what a failure he is.

He learns how to agree with everything they tell him.

He learns.

* * *

A month before the anniversary of his parents’ death, they tell Bruce the bones in his leg haven’t healed properly. They tell him the second, longer recovery had stopped the cracks from healing and strengthening. They tell him the leg will always be weak. They tell him the metal stays in.

A month before the anniversary of his parents’ death, they tell Bruce they will need to take the plates out and put larger ones in, to prevent the bones from growing deformed as he ages. He is thirteen and his parents have been dead nearly a year.

He spends November 12th in the hospital, hating the stitches in his skin and himself for surviving. His mother could have endured this. His father could have forgiven this. He can’t even get out of bed without wanting to cry.

He spends November 12th in the hospital and he tells the nurse it hurts more than it actually does. He can’t escape this bed, but he doesn’t have to be awake for it. They can make him stay there, but they can’t make him stay conscious. He’s paying for the drugs anyway.

It’s a bad idea but he does it anyway. He is broken and grieving and full of bad things.

* * *

His parting goodbye from the hospital is two prescriptions; one to keep the pain at bay and the other to keep back the nightmares.

They say he cries in his sleep.

* * *

Five months after the third surgery, when Bruce is fourteen, a girl says “kiss me”, so he does. She tastes like apples and smells of roses. Her skin is soft and pale without a single freckle that he can see. She is fifteen and from New York City and when he pulls away, she laughs like he’s done something wrong.

She gives him a look - sweet innocent cripple and she’s got bad intentions - and pulls him back towards her. She grinds against his hips, right against his many scars and digs her nails into his hair. It hurts. He doesn’t like not being able to breathe. He says something about needing to get back to the party and she laughs again. There’s a nervous flutter in his chest that’s making his heart beat too fast. He wants to go back to the party and he didn’t even want to be there in the first place.

Later, much later, after she’s had her fun and Bruce has made his excuses to escape relatively unscarred, the older son of a millionaire eyeing his crutch asks how it was, having heard the girl bragging. Bruce says “it was good”, because he’s learned girls don’t like it when he doesn’t like them. The young man asks how he felt. “My heart was racing,” Bruce says, because he’s only just started to learn how to lie.

“That’s a good thing,” the man says with a laugh and the people there laugh with him. “You must have liked it.”

Bruce supposes he must have, even if his hands are shaking and his stomach feels twisted into knots. He knows he’s worthless. He knows he’s never going to be loved like he wants to be. He knows he’s suppose to have liked it. That’s what everyone says.

They can’t all be lying.

* * *

A month or two after that, another girl corners him and pushes him against the wall. She’s taller, she’s stronger, her nerves aren’t dulled by painkillers.

She says “honestly, I don’t even like you that much,” but she kisses him anyway and presses too hard too hard on his scars.

Two weeks after that, a different girl says “look, just pretend you like this so everyone gets off my back,” before she does the same thing as the last one.

A month after that he gets “it’s no fun when you shiver like that, _stop it_.”

After that, “you’re suppose to buy me things and then I kiss you once or twice, that’s all you’re good for anyway, who would _want you?_ ”

* * *

Shortly after Bruce turns fifteen, another girl pushes him back onto the couch of an empty room. “Let’s have some fun,” she says, flipping her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder and ignoring his hiss of pain. “I bet you never have any fun, no wonder you’re so lonely.” She kisses him deeply and slowly and he tries to breathe through the panic in his chest. His hands are shaking and she says “whoa, nervous much? Aren’t you happy I like you?” as her knees dig into the sore muscles of his legs.

“Of course,” he says, because he’s learned how to lie by now. She doesn’t seem to care, but when she grabs his face her fingers press on his neck so tightly he feels he might choke on that or maybe her tongue.

She manages to get half his shirt unbuttoned before someone walks in by accident and then Bruce spends twenty minutes listening to a lecture on common decency.

He does not say he’s grateful for the interruption because all the kids he knows say it was a shame he didn’t go further. He guesses it must have been. They all say so.

* * *

“But I mean, you _wanted_ to do it, didn’t you? Who would pass up something like that, she’s _gorgeous_ , you’d have to be crazy to not want that.”

“Yeah, who the fuck would be _that_ messed up? At least you’re not a total wreck, right Wayne?”

* * *

On Bruce’s sixteenth birthday, a different girl says “it’s not like it’s illegal or anything, we’re old enough for this, I’m on the pill” and unbuckles his belt while he presses his hands to the wall to brace himself and hide the shakes. Everyone says this is amazing. Everyone is asking why he hasn’t yet. Everyone is wondering if he _can’t_.

He is a broken thing that relies on the generosity of others for company. He is also a young man with a lot of time and money on his hands. People want that money. People are interested. Certain things are expected of him. He is suppose to _act_ a certain way and he knows it, everyone knows it. He knows it, he knows it, he must, he _must_.

He sobs about halfway though and she says “fuck yeah, perfect, just like that” and he thinks-

Perhaps he’s mistaken. Maybe it’s just the pain of his wounds that’s getting to him. Surely he can’t hate the feeling of her skin against his. That’s not how this is supposed to work.

He’s already broken, he can’t break another way.

* * *

After that it’s another girl and another and another and a boy or two who’ve gotten the message he won’t say no if they want something. He knows this is what people want him to do - _find a wife, have kids, pass on the mission you can’t do_ \- but he can barely stand the feeling of their hands on him and nothing ever lasts long.

He’s an oddity to them - the worthless cripple who is richer than them all and it doesn’t gain him an ounce of respect. They laugh at his scars and his crutches when he uses them and they mock his slow pace and the shaking of his hands. They ask why he’s not as smart as his parents, who were in university at his age. They ask what pills he takes, they ask if they can take some. They shove him too hard and cling to him too tightly, throwing their weight around so much that it hurts for a good day afterwards.

His world is small. It is his childhood bedroom and a few photographs of his parents he doesn’t look at. It’s his medication, four bottles lined up in a row and the crutches he can’t leave behind. It is his aching scars and never-ending nightmares, his weary heart and body. Sometimes he has days that don’t really hurt. Sometimes he has friends that don’t make his skin crawl. Sometimes he has Alfred.

But it grows smaller all the time, narrowed by questions he doesn’t want to answer and people he doesn’t want touching his body and the crushing feeling of a world he’ll never properly join, his failing mission, his miserable body, his-

His world is small. It is made of the only things that still feel like _his_.

* * *

Seven months after Bruce turns sixteen, he is shaken awake by one of the maids that comes in sometimes.

Alfred is dead.


End file.
